Theory of Fat N+1

Joseph, Mary & Jonah

It's all because of those get-ahead gurus are constantly exhorting us to prioritize our goals, concentrate on what's important, and focus, focus, focus! Problem is if you do as they say, you are not leaving any mental space to think about anything else, like what you are eating, and if you are like me, you end up eating sort of mindlessly. You eat whatever is handy and whatever is not going to stick to your fingers and find its way to your keyboard. Nothing worse than a sticky or greasy keyboard. So while food may not be that interesting, if you don't want to grow up to be a whale, you need to set aside a portion of your brain for thinking about what you are eating.

Theory of Fat #4862

The Human Endocannabinoid System
Click the pic to embiggentate

Washington Post has the story: Study finds sleep deprivation can give you the ‘marijuana munchies’
That sure matches my experience. Wikipedia has a long article about the Endocannabinoid system, which seems to be at the crux of this. Every wonder why smoking dope gets you high? It's because your body is already making and using the very same stuff as the active ingredients in pot.

Fat Man Waddling

Me outside Reb's Cafe in Benson, Arizona, last fall.

I finally realized I am fat. For a long time I 'knew' I was fat. Every year the numbers on the scale creep up: 200, 205, 220, 250, 265, but I never really considered myself fat. I'd look in the mirror and I'd think that I've gained a little weight, or maybe I'm getting a little chunky, but me, fat? No way.
    That all changed when I went to see my brother in Arizona last fall. Not quite sure what caused my outlook to change. I supposed watching my brother struggle with his hip joint might have had something to do with it, but there was no inciteful moment, it's just when I got back I realized what those numbers on the scale meant. They meant I was fat.
    I have lost of few pounds since then but it's going to be a year at least before I have anything to celebrate. I have lost a few pounds several times before, but I always climbed back on the chow wagon after a few weeks.
    Part of the problem is that I enjoy eating. It's a visceral experience, kind of like sex, or drinking, or having fun. Just the taste and texture of a spoonful of chocolate ice cream is enough to send me into rapture, and the first thing I want after one spoonful is another, at least until I get a belly full.
    Restricting my food intake is key. Exercise helps keep me healthy, but I'm not going to exercise all this fat away, I get tired too quickly. And it doesn't take much in the way of food to replace the calories consumed.
    I started keeping a detailed food journal when I got back from Arizona. I was eating 2,700 calories a day. After about a month of that I was able to cut down to 2,000 calories a day. I think I did it by I eliminating snacks. And I wasn't adding up my calories every day, I would wait until Sunday and then add up the entire week.
    To start with I was eating 19,000 calories a week and I was able to cut down to 14,000. You can see from these numbers that 10 calories here or there doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Even if it's 10 calories 10 times a day, 7 days a week, it only amounts to 700 calories. 100 calories 3 times a day comes to 2100 calories a week, which might be enough to make a difference on someone who is half my size, it's not going to make much difference to me. I needed to cut 250 calories 3 times a day. Somehow I did it. We shall see if I can maintain.

Previous posts on the subject.

Fat Man Lifts Car

Me and the lever demo, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Pull the rope down 3 feet and the car goes up a few inches.

Fat

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Fat Official Music Video
Bad Boy Edd
At my last stop at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago I weighed 265 pounds. I have gained 30 pounds in the last three years. It seems that every time my cardiologist changes my medication I gain ten pounds. If I didn't have more faith in the modern medicine I might suspect my cardiologist of trying to kill me.
    I seem to be caught in a bit of vicious circle. I don't get enough exercise, which means my blood pressure goes up, so doc prescribes more medicine to lower my blood pressure, which causes water to be removed from my blood and deposited in other portions of my body. I suspect it is going into my muscles, which is why I ache all over all the time, which is why I don't get enough exercise.
    That last sentence is all conjecture on my part, but it fits the known facts and we don't know any others now, do we? (Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, you know?)
    When I was in my 20-s I weighed like 170 pounds. I attribute that to my excessively healthy lifestyle Not. More like a steady diet of cheeseburgers and beer. I didn't get married until I was 34. By that time I was approaching 200 pounds and over the next 30 years I packed on another 40 pounds.
    My erratic heartbeat put me in the hospital about ten or fifteen years ago.  In the week I spent there I lost ten pounds or so of water weight due to intravenous Lasix. It came back pretty quick once I got out.

    I heard from an old friend of mine this week. When I first met him 30 years ago he was definitely pear-shaped. I'd estimate his weight then at 250 pounds. I weighed less than 200. At the time I thought he was excessively fat and he should do something about it, but then as now, nobody seemed to have any real answers. Now our situations are reversed. He attributes his weight loss to determination and making a combined effort with his wife.

    I am just now realizing I am fat. Up till now 'I just needed to lose some weight', or 'I'm a little heavy', but I never thought of myself as fat. I mean fat people are big, dumb and slow, and I wasn't any of those, was I? Wrong again, Eisenstein.

    A conversation with younger son a few weeks ago opened my eyes (funny how talking to people from another generation can give you a new perspective). My problem might be that I am not enthused about anything. I have a boat load of obligations and responsibilities. None of them are too onerous (as long as I have money in the bank), but none of them are very interesting either.
    I have any number of ideas for great and wonderful inventions, but I don't seem to be able to muster the enthusiasm to follow through on any one of them. My self-driven attention span seems to last a maximum of a couple of hours, and then I need a nap. When the next day rolls around something else will pop up and grab my attention.

    Maybe this exploration of my problem will lead to a solution.

Update July 2022 replaced missing video.

 

Crazy

I am fat and getting fatter, at least five pounds in the last year. I now tip the scales at 255 pounds. I probably should weigh something closer to 175 pounds. I have tried numerous schemes to lose weight but none of them have worked. I am pretty well convinced it's all in my head, but what can you do about that?
    Once more I am going to make an attempt. I have an idea for a scheme that might work. I let you know if it pans out. Or not. Meanwhile, I thought I'd see what the internet has to say and I found this quote on the dreaded HuffPost:

"What drives our behavior is not logic but brain biochemistry, habits and addiction, states of consciousness and what we see people around us doing. We are emotional beings with the ability to rationalize -- not rational beings with emotions. If we are stressed, depressed or addicted, no matter how good the advice we are given, chances are that we will not be able to act on it. The more primitive, emotional brain generally has precedence over the newer, more rational brain." - Dr. Rankin

I think that sums up the situation pretty well.

Big Fat Lie

I've been kicking around this theory for a few years now, and since I seem to be losing weight and I'm feeling kind of crappy today, I thought I would share it with you. My theory is that Americans are all getting so fat because of all the toxic substances found in our environment. Our bodies react to these toxins by wrapping those toxic bits in little balls of fat and storing them away in fat cells. This is also why it's so hard to lose weight. When you are losing weight, your body is unpacking those fat cells to recover the stored energy and when it does that, those little bits of toxic shit that had been safely stored away are let loose to attack you and make you miserable.

Theory of Fat #43

I'm reading an op/ed piece in by Geraldine Kempler (a local pediatrician) in The Oregonian today. She wants to worry about being eaten by sharks, but she gets distracted by toddlers drinking apple juice. She thinks it's bad for them and they shouldn't be drinking it, or at least not by gallon jug. OK, fine, she might be very well right. No skin off my nose. But then she makes this comment:

Ideally, all babies would ... have flash-pasteurized local apple cider as a treat every fall.

Apple juice is a treat? Well, I suppose in healthy, whole-food-ish [tm] way, it kind of is. I mean it's certainly sweet enough. But here is the crux of the problem: this is America, the land of plenty, we can have treats whenever we want. If we want to have treats we can have them every day.

     Every time my friend Jack goes to a carnival or fair, or anyplace really, that has a stand selling corndogs, he will buy one and eat it. Not because he necessarily wants one, or because he is hungry, but because when he was a kid a and his parents took him to the fair they would NOT buy him any corn dogs, on account of they cost money, you know. So now he has money and he can buy a corn dog anytime he likes, so he does.

     Among my many vices is Reddi Wip whipped cream, the kind that comes in the aerosol cans. When I was a kid we would sometimes get a dollop of whipped cream on dish of something or other, could have been turnips for all I cared. But the dollop was all we got, no extra, no seconds, no piling on. I think economy was the purpose here as well. But now I can afford to buy all the whipped cream I want, so I will pile it on. It doesn't help that the resident food Nazi's make a big fuss about it. I think their argument is specious. The stuff is mostly air, even a football size serving isn't going to have more than a couple calories. Yeah, a couple zillion you mean.
     So sometime in the last 50 years the price of food fell to the point that the majority of folks could eat all they want, and after a billion years of evolving on a starvation diet, by gum we're gonna eat.

Previous Theories of Fat: #42, #10, #9, #8, #7.

Theory of Fat #42

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to some music, some tunes I was familiar with and liked, and I started noticing things that I had not noticed before. Patterns of notes, complex melodies, things that I usually don't notice. It wasn't entirely pleasant, matter of fact it kind of soured the experience for me. I think what was going on was more of my brain was being used to listen to the music, which might explain why some people like operas and symphonies and other people like folk music or really loud rock and roll. There might be sounds in some sorts of music that some people's brains pick up on, and others don't. It might be influenced by brain power or upbringing or exposure, or it might just be an innate facet of personality. I don't think there is anything you can do about it. In any case whatever it was went away and I seem to be back to normal. Normal for me, anyway.
    This led me to think the same thing may be going on with gourmets (or foodies as they are called now). A larger part of their brain is engaged in smelling and tasting, so they are going to be more interested in, and more discriminating about food. I enjoy a good meal occasionally, but mostly I'm not too picky. A fast-food cheeseburger will do me fine nine times out of ten.
    Then there was that bit about how the Victorians were healthier than we are because they had better foods to eat. It occurs to me that people have some sort of innate ability to determine what kinds of food they need (pregnant women's cravings are a prime example). It might be that if you are not getting enough of certain kinds of micro-nutrients, your body might be telling you to eat more of a particular food in order to get more. Eating more might get you more micro-nutrients, but it can also cause you to gain weight.
    I'm not sure if I buy that or not. I suspect psychological forces play a bigger role than any stinking micro-nutrients, but hey, cheeseburgers are the perfect food, aren't they?

One Man

I heard two stories today, both were about one man's outsized influence on society. The first one I heard from my doctor. It was about the "evils of fat" theory that swept across this country recently. When did it start? 30, 40 years ago? It has only recently been been refuted, and there are probably still pockets of resistance holding on to it. In any case, the spread of this "theory" was primarily the work of one man, who just kept repeating his story over and over again, telling it to anyone who would listen, and evidently a lot of people listened and almost no one bothered to check up on his story.

The second was a story I started reading in the October issue of Discover magazine. It was about the relationship between the ratio of men to women and the political climate in this country. On average, over the long term, the ratio of male to female babies is about even. There are slightly more men than women born, about 107 men to 100 women. However, this is the long term average. On a short term basis the ratio can vary as much as 30%. In some years you might only have 70 males born to every 100 females. Other years might be the opposite. Also, the number of births varies every year, sometimes fewer than 3 million, sometimes more than 4 million. What this means is that when it comes time to choose a marriage partner the ratio of available men to available women may be very far from even.

One guy was doing some research on this and he found that when the number of men exceeded the number of women, the country became more conservative. When the opposite happened, the country became more liberal.

This man was planning to write a book suitable for the public. Unfortunately, he died before he finished it. His son took up his work and eventually published his findings, but they were only published in an academic journal and did not receive wide publicity. The popular version of the book was never produced, so it is only now that his research is becoming common knowledge.

Optimize Me

Recent Background:

Last fall I was on a cost cutting kick and I happened to read something about anti-depressants that said they only worked for six months, or they did their work in six months, or something. I had been taking Lexapro for years and it was costing me $60 a month, so I said, let's quit this, I don't need this stuff anymore. So I quit taking Lexapro.

Then around Thanksgiving I went to the doctor about something, and that visit convinced me to stop taking Benadryl at night and my nasal spray in the morning.

Johnny comes home at Christmas and I caught his cold, which predictably turned into a sinus infection, which resulted in my taking a couple of courses antibiotics and one course of prednisone.

So I got shut of the sinus infection, or inflammation, but I wasn't sleeping very well, and I decided it was probably because I quit taking my anti-depressant, so I went back to the doctor and got a script for Prozac which costs me nothing. I hate to think what Lexapro would cost without insurance.

Things got better, but I still wasn't getting enough sleep, so I started taking Benadryl again. I took two tablets last night and slept pretty well.

---

Last week I paid a visit to Optimize Me! for an evaluation. They operate a unique bio-feedback system. They put electrodes on your head to record your brain waves, feed these into a computer which converts them into sound and then plays them back to you via headphones. The idea is that when your brain hears what you are thinking, it will adjust itself to provide the most harmonious thought patterns, or something.

For the evaluation, they hooked me up to the sensors and recorded my brainwaves, but no headphones, no bio-feedback. They recorded brain waves for maybe half an hour, then they processed them, printed the results, and discussed them with me. The chart showed that some of brain waves are out of balance. Can't say as I am surprised.

The "treatment" is time consuming and costly. It consists of two sessions a day for two hours each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a two hour break in between. You do this for five days.

If it worked, it would be well worth it. But no matter what anybody says, we don't know if it will work for me, and by work I mean I would start getting a good nights sleep every night.

---

I think poor sleep is at the root of many of my problems, mental and physical. Daring daughter wants me to fly to Mexico city to visit with her for a weekend next month. I hate traveling. Well, I just realized the reason I don't like traveling is because I am always tired. Traveling takes energy, energy I could be spending on doing fun things, like eating donuts. If I was sleeping better, I would probably enjoy traveling.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to see Body Worlds at OMSI. Bizarre, interesting, and just a little grisly. On the walls there were some posters, and one of these posters said something to the effect that sleep suppresses the appetite, so one of the reasons people get fat is that they aren't getting enough good sleep.If I was sleeping better, I might be able to lose some weight. Shoot, this might be why so many Americans are so overweight. It's just like our parents said: we are over-stimulated and as such we aren't sleeping well. This also explains why most diets fail: they don't address the sleep issue. So put down the donut, chubby, and take a Seconal.

Sugarfied

How about a soda pop that only has one teaspoon of sugar? Regular soda pop has about ten teaspoons. Too much sugar isn't good for you, or so I've been told a million times. One teaspoon of sugar in a cup of tea makes it sweet. Why not one teaspoon in a can of pop? I don't like artificial sweeteners, mostly on a matter of principle. Same reason I don't like decaf coffee, non-alcoholic beer and low fat anything.

Using only one teaspoon of sugar would also save the soda companies a few cents. I'm not going to pretend it would be a big financial reason. Shoot, a bottle of water costs as much to buy as a can of soda. The cost of producing a drink is all about the transportation of mass and the refrigeration thereof. Flavoring and anything else added to the water has got to be less than one-tenth of one percent of cost of delivering that ice cold drink into your sweaty little hands.

Quote of the Day

Inside Every Fat Woman Is A Skinny Woman Crying To Get Out.
Usually A Little Chocolate Will Shut The Bitch Up.

From a comment posted by B. Davis on Donnaville. I spewed milk out my nose, or I would have if I had been drinking mik.

Theory of Fat #10

Social networks have a bigger influence on what you do than you think.

Theory of Fat #9

I've been having a lot of aching muscles lately with no obvious cause. This has happened many times before, and will probably happen again. I was reading about myalgia (muscle pain) and one of the suspected causes is a virus. What if one our body's defenses against an invader was to bottle it up in a fat cell? You catch a bug, your body locks up the bad guys in fat cells. You get better, but you gain weight. Should you try and lose weight, the fat cells discorporate and the virus that was bottled up inside is turned loose and you get sick again. Your body reacts the same way, and you gain more weight. No way you are ever going to loose weight, at least not without some painkillers. Maybe that's why so many Americans are so fat: they get around more, get exposed to more diseases, catch more diseases, and fat is one of the bodies ways of dealing with them. And maybe that's why heroin is so popular.

I read a story one time about a guy a long time ago who was constantly ill. He moved to the Big Bend area of Texas, found a hot spring and soaked in it. Cured him, so he set up a spa. Was a going business for quite a while. Hot springs, steam baths, and saunas all have the same effect of giving one an artificial fever. Sometimes I think I should start using one, see if it does me any good. 21 days in row though. That could be kind of tough. Meanwhile there's Naproxen.

So why is this theory #9? So I could post this tune.

I'm Fat

Just came across this story about one man's struggle with obesity. No real answers, but he shoots down all the weight loss pundits, and he asks a couple of good questions. He also has a link to Weird Al's parody of Michael Jackson's Bad.

Eat To Sleep

Everywhere I go I see fat people. I'm not talking a little overweight, I'm talking FAT, like three, four, even five hundred pounds. And every time I see one I think to myself: "how could let themselves get like that? Why don't they do something about it?". And then I look at myself. I am maybe 50 pounds overweight, and I can't seem to do anything about it. Pretty said state of affairs. Can't really say anything now, can you chubby?

So here we go with yet another theory about why people, especially me, are overweight. I fall asleep easier with a full stomach. After a large lunch, there is nothing better than a nap. Twenty minutes is supposed to be enough, but if I didn't get enough sleep the night before (which often happens) and there is nothing pressing to do (which often happens when you are unemployed) it can easily turn into two hours. Come bedtime (which is supposed to be ten or eleven, but lately has been more like one or two), I find it easier to go to sleep if I have a full stomach. I suppose if the stomach is full, more blood gets diverted to the stomach, which leaves less for the brain, so you become calmer and sleep comes easier.

It takes a small chunk of food to keep my weight up. It takes 2700 calories to maintain my weight. If I weighed 200 pounds it would only take 2400 calories. So I must be consuming an extra 300 calories a day, or one cheese sandwich, light on the cheese.

Update December 2010. Just noticed that the picture had vanished. I went looking for a replacement, but all I found were pictures of grilled cheese sandwiches, which is not the same thing as a plain cheese sandwich, except for this line drawing, and even it is labeled as a grilled cheese sandwich, though I don't think it portrays the grilled part very well. Sheesh.

Update November 2015. Replaced the picture again. The previous picture exists, but the site moved it, so they obviously can't be trusted.

"Complete absence of nuts in Virginia"

She hit the nail right on the head with this line:

"I couldn't find a skinny, aggressive squirrel picture and chose to offer a fat, complacent squirrel by way of contrast. His name is Fatso."

Stolen entirely from Scribal Terror.

Sugar, Speed & Fat

Glucose Metabolism

I have a new theory on why so many people in America are so fat. It's the complexity of modern life, combined with the pressure cooker environment of working for living, and then you add in the brains' glucose requirement and the ready availability of high-fructose corn syrup and you have all the ingredients for a massive weight increase. People enjoy being smart, they like figuring things out on their own. Thinking requires brain power, and the brain runs on sugar. Often when I am working on a difficult problem I will get hungry and there is nothing better than donuts. Mmmm, nice big fat sugary donuts. And since I only walk a mile or two each day instead of the five I should be walking, I have gained weight. I stopped gaining weight some years ago and have been stuck at my current 235 pounds for I don't know how long. Ten years, maybe? More? Whatever.

Because of the culture we live in, people's brains are working overtime creating a demand for sugar. Eating and drinking provides some relief, but often more food is taken in to satisfy the disproportionate demands of the brain than the body really needs, and that extra food goes to fat.

Some people like speed. I think most people would like it if they tried it. Fortunately, most people know enough to refrain from taking something that could potentially ruin their lives. Interesting thing about speed freaks is they like to work. Go, go, go, get things done, don't stop to eat, too much to do. I suspect speed somehow is freeing up glucose to feed the brain, or maybe it's an indirect effect that just raises the demand for sugar and the some other autonomic system gets triggered to boost the blood sugar level.

In any case, both sugar and speed are feeding the same urge to get or keep the brain revved up. Even if you aren't doing anything, it gets the brain going which can keep you entertained all by itself. After all, can't have people being bored. Idle hands are the devil's workshop and all that.

Update February 2016. Replaced missing picture of 'pavement cells' from Korea with Glucose Metabolism from Wikipedia. Why did I have a picture of pavement cells (assuming that's what it was, that's what the file name said)? Pavement cells are only found in plants, and plants don't get fat, do they? Maybe it was just a cool picture. Too bad it vanished.

Rolaids

I just came up with another reason/excuse why I'm fat: indigestion. Sometimes my stomach doesn't feel quite right, and I think, I'll just have a little something to eat. That will quiet it down. And it works, and so it became a habit. Recently, I'd been having a little more indigestion, and I started taking Tums, and somewhere along the way, I realized I was eating because of an upset stomach, not because I was hungry. Didn't like to think that I needed a constant supply of Tums, after all something must be wrong with me if I have to eat Tums all the time, and there is nothing wrong me. Maybe being in the hospital last summer opened my eyes. Or maybe all the purple pill ads on TV did it. And there's nothing wrong with me that life on a primitive farm wouldn't cure.